Billy McFarland sent shockwaves across the globe when he announced the second edition of Fyre Fest would take place in 2024. The first attempt at the festival ended in a disaster, and even sent McFarland to prison for wire fraud. But, he’s determined to get festivalgoers on board this time around.
Last month, McFarland officially announced that tickets were up-for-grabs, and during the same day as the onsale, the first 100 presale tickets were sold out. Although it sounds insane to buy tickets to a festival that has a 90% chance of not happening, some people are actually taking it seriously. The other half of people who purchased tickets are likely just here for the laugh — and potential second documentary of the monstrosity.
For those who seemingly forgot, the 2017 event was promoted on social media as a luxury event from some of the top influencers across the globe. It was billed as the “festival of the year” on the Bahamian Island of Great Exuma in the Caribbean, boasting villas, top-tier chef cuisine, and performances from acts like blink-182 and Disclosure.
Ticketholders showed up to the biggest scam of their lives; at the island, they were met with wet tents, no performers, and a boxed cheese sandwich for dinner. The disastrous, failed event sparked eight lawsuits and became an infamous cultural sensation.
McFarland has a completely different outlook on this version of the festival. He claimed that while in prison, he wrote out a “50-page plan” detailing how he would “take this overall interest in Fyre” to bring the festival to fruition. In an interview with MarketingBrew, McFarland noted that since 2016, Fyre’s had around 32 billion mentions across social media, which “makes us the largest, or most-talked about, festival in the world by a few times.”
“I think the opportunity here is all about working with a great festival company to bring the Fyre vision to life [and] share it with the world,” McFarland told the publication. “Of course, this is an amazing opportunity to start paying back everybody that’s owed from the ramifications of Fyre One and get that squared away and then obviously build a big business going forward.”
Since McFarland went to jail over charges relating to the festival, he told MarketingBrew that he can’t be an officer or director of a publicly traded company. Instead, he said that there is an internal team of around 10 people. They’re also reportedly working with a “massive business doing billions of dollars a year in revenue” who has their own full-time internal Fyre team.
This time around, McFarland said he wants to build trust among festivalgoers.
“I just hope to rebuild my track record and rebuild trust over the years and beyond the success of Fyre Festival…Rebuilding trust is a theme that is super important for me,” McFarland said. “Hopefully, by doing that, over the years to come, that will reopen opportunities.”
In terms of marketing, McFarland told MarketingBrew that their approach is going to be very different to “create controversy.”
“We don’t want things to look too good, but we don’t want things to look too bad either,’ McFarland said. “We want 60% of people wanting to come to Fyre to essentially see me get knocked out and to see Fyre fail, then 40% wanting to be there when it’s really, really good. I think my job is to create controversy, where we have some good things come through, a lot of negative things come through, and no one really knows what’s going on inside the storm.”
So far, Fyre hasn’t been marketing the event, and there aren’t many details. The website notes that the festival is “targeted for the end of 2024,” yet there is no exact date or lineup at this time. The next tier of tickets, set for $799, is “coming soon.”
Will the festival actually shock the world and go on as-planned this time around, or is it set to crash and burn once again? Only time will tell.
